Hola Peeps! Thanks for logging in . . .
This week let's look at presidential inauguration technology. The first link is to a Wired article about how technology has changed inaugurations over the years.
The second link is to a dVice article about bulletproof clothing. I'm not really sure how much I believe this one. I would need to see some video of the clothing being tested to believe it.
The third link is to an article about the presidential Cadillac limo and how it has been retro-fitted to make it the safest presidential limo ever built.
Please take a look at ALL of the articles, don't just stop at one. Give me an opinion about something on one of the articles.
Talk to me . . .
http://tinyurl.com/7tno23
http://tinyurl.com/98mdnd
http://tinyurl.com/ae94qp
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Discussion 18 - 1/20/09
Thanks for logging in!
Let's get deep this week.
I want to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his thoughts on technology.
In 1964 Dr. King delivered a lecture the day after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in which he told his audience at the University of Oslo that "material advancement was meaningless without an accompanying moral structure." In other words, the growing abundance of technology is undermining the human spirit. My favorite quote from the article is: "The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually," he said. "We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers."
This week I'm asking you to think, REALLY THINK about Dr. King's words. He is telling us that technology advancement needs to go hand in hand with spiritual advancement, or it's all for nothing. THINK. Do you agree with Dr. King? Disagree? WHY? You will answer both of those questions to receive credit this week.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/12/dayintech_1211
Let's get deep this week.
I want to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his thoughts on technology.
In 1964 Dr. King delivered a lecture the day after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in which he told his audience at the University of Oslo that "material advancement was meaningless without an accompanying moral structure." In other words, the growing abundance of technology is undermining the human spirit. My favorite quote from the article is: "The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually," he said. "We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers."
This week I'm asking you to think, REALLY THINK about Dr. King's words. He is telling us that technology advancement needs to go hand in hand with spiritual advancement, or it's all for nothing. THINK. Do you agree with Dr. King? Disagree? WHY? You will answer both of those questions to receive credit this week.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/12/dayintech_1211
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Discussion 17 - 1/12/09
Thanks for logging in!
So this time of year is special to gadgets geeks (like me and Ray) because it's time for the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. This is a multi-day show that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people go to in order to see the very newest in electronics technology for consumers. Wanna see the new games coming out this year? Guess where they're debuted? Wanna see the newest cell phones for the coming year? Yep, CES. Guess where the VCR was debuted? DVD player? Laptops? All that stuff was first shown to the world at CES. This is THE mecca for geeks.
This year has been no exception. There are new 3-D televisions! There are new Palm cell phones! Laptops that are only 8 inches (sublaptops)!
My personal favorites were the bigscreen plasma TV that's only 1 inch thick and the Polaroid digital camera that prints out instantly (replacing your parents old Polaroid Instamatics).
Check out the following stuff that's been introduced this year. Don't stop on page 1 . . . there are 4 pages. Pick something and give us an opinion.
http://ces.cnet.com/
Talk to me . . .
So this time of year is special to gadgets geeks (like me and Ray) because it's time for the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. This is a multi-day show that HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people go to in order to see the very newest in electronics technology for consumers. Wanna see the new games coming out this year? Guess where they're debuted? Wanna see the newest cell phones for the coming year? Yep, CES. Guess where the VCR was debuted? DVD player? Laptops? All that stuff was first shown to the world at CES. This is THE mecca for geeks.
This year has been no exception. There are new 3-D televisions! There are new Palm cell phones! Laptops that are only 8 inches (sublaptops)!
My personal favorites were the bigscreen plasma TV that's only 1 inch thick and the Polaroid digital camera that prints out instantly (replacing your parents old Polaroid Instamatics).
Check out the following stuff that's been introduced this year. Don't stop on page 1 . . . there are 4 pages. Pick something and give us an opinion.
http://ces.cnet.com/
Talk to me . . .
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Discussion 16 - 1/5/09
Hello and Welcome to 2009!
Thanks for logging in . . .
As you all know, I went to Mexico for Christmas. We had a wonderful trip. As a souvenir I brought back a massive head cold that made me feel like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. It's effects are STILL lingering.
Ahhhh travel. Gotta love it.
For those of you who have never traveled internationally, it's a bit of a hassle. First you have to present your passport 3 times to board the plane in YOUR country (at the check-in counter, at the security line, and at the gate). When you get off the plane at your destination the fun REALLY begins. You find yourself in a long, long line of people who are just as eager to enter the destination country as you are. After all, you ARE on vacation right?!? Wooohoooooo! 30 minutes later when you're still in the same line your enthusiasm starts to wane a bit. An hour later as you gingerly approach the security agent with your passport and your paperwork out, the praying begins. Oh Lord, please let there not be a problem with my passport. Oh Lord, please let the security agent be having a good day. Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord.
Well, passports today are equipped with a radio frequency chip that allows the security agent to scan the passport, automatically pulling up your information. It's supposed to make this long, tedious process go much faster. Except for mine didn't work at the security line in Mexico. And neither did Mr. L's. In the meantime, the friends we're traveling with are through the security gate and looking back at us like "Uhhhh, see yall in a week. We're on vacation. Woooohooooo!" Our security gate agent is yelling at another security gate agent (in Spanish, and yall know how limited my Spanish is). That security agent is yelling at another guy (evidently the guy in charge) who finally comes over to type in our info manually. FINALLY we're through the checkpoint. But it's all ok, 'cause were on vacation. Wooohoooo! Right? Umm, not so much.
Now comes baggage claims and customs. You stand behind the yellow line until the guy tells you to approach as a group. He takes your passports (here we go again), looks over your paperwork and tells the first one of you in line to push the big red button. I'm not kidding when I tell you this button looks like a big ole emergency stop button. The button either lights us a green "go ahead" light, or a red "you ain't going anywhere" light. If you get the red light they take you and all of your baggage aside and go through everything with a fine tooth comb. Luckily we got the green light, and away we went. Wooohooooo! We're on vacation! Right? Right.
Oddly enough, coming back into our country the passports scanned just fine. We talked to the security agent here (who ironically was Russian) about it and he said sometimes it happens and then it never happens again.
So I've done a bit of research on passports since I got home. Turns out, they're extremely hackable. The point of the chip was to make them difficult to counterfit, which is great, but if somebody stands 20 feet away from a person carrying a passport with a reader they could scab your information. Great! Just great!
This week you have a choice for your blog. You can either read the article about passport hacking and give your opinion, or you can visit a travel site (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz) and see how much it would cost to go where you want to go. If you choose to visit the travel site you will need to tell me which one, tell me where you're going, and tell me how much a one-way ticket is.
http://tinyurl.com/3fdb33
www.travelocity.com
www.orbitz.com
www.expedia.com
Talk to me . . .
Thanks for logging in . . .
As you all know, I went to Mexico for Christmas. We had a wonderful trip. As a souvenir I brought back a massive head cold that made me feel like I'd been hit by a Mack truck. It's effects are STILL lingering.
Ahhhh travel. Gotta love it.
For those of you who have never traveled internationally, it's a bit of a hassle. First you have to present your passport 3 times to board the plane in YOUR country (at the check-in counter, at the security line, and at the gate). When you get off the plane at your destination the fun REALLY begins. You find yourself in a long, long line of people who are just as eager to enter the destination country as you are. After all, you ARE on vacation right?!? Wooohoooooo! 30 minutes later when you're still in the same line your enthusiasm starts to wane a bit. An hour later as you gingerly approach the security agent with your passport and your paperwork out, the praying begins. Oh Lord, please let there not be a problem with my passport. Oh Lord, please let the security agent be having a good day. Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord.
Well, passports today are equipped with a radio frequency chip that allows the security agent to scan the passport, automatically pulling up your information. It's supposed to make this long, tedious process go much faster. Except for mine didn't work at the security line in Mexico. And neither did Mr. L's. In the meantime, the friends we're traveling with are through the security gate and looking back at us like "Uhhhh, see yall in a week. We're on vacation. Woooohooooo!" Our security gate agent is yelling at another security gate agent (in Spanish, and yall know how limited my Spanish is). That security agent is yelling at another guy (evidently the guy in charge) who finally comes over to type in our info manually. FINALLY we're through the checkpoint. But it's all ok, 'cause were on vacation. Wooohoooo! Right? Umm, not so much.
Now comes baggage claims and customs. You stand behind the yellow line until the guy tells you to approach as a group. He takes your passports (here we go again), looks over your paperwork and tells the first one of you in line to push the big red button. I'm not kidding when I tell you this button looks like a big ole emergency stop button. The button either lights us a green "go ahead" light, or a red "you ain't going anywhere" light. If you get the red light they take you and all of your baggage aside and go through everything with a fine tooth comb. Luckily we got the green light, and away we went. Wooohooooo! We're on vacation! Right? Right.
Oddly enough, coming back into our country the passports scanned just fine. We talked to the security agent here (who ironically was Russian) about it and he said sometimes it happens and then it never happens again.
So I've done a bit of research on passports since I got home. Turns out, they're extremely hackable. The point of the chip was to make them difficult to counterfit, which is great, but if somebody stands 20 feet away from a person carrying a passport with a reader they could scab your information. Great! Just great!
This week you have a choice for your blog. You can either read the article about passport hacking and give your opinion, or you can visit a travel site (Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz) and see how much it would cost to go where you want to go. If you choose to visit the travel site you will need to tell me which one, tell me where you're going, and tell me how much a one-way ticket is.
http://tinyurl.com/3fdb33
www.travelocity.com
www.orbitz.com
www.expedia.com
Talk to me . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)